blue cat mood: barricaded, but introspectively techno-adept

robocat
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Hurrah for Paula! Have just received trade paperback of "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell', and thus far, it's rather lovely. Which is a bonus, as there are currently Emotions flying around the front room, which rather restricts me to my quarters. Pfffff.

Ah the changing of the seasons. D.H. Lawrence says:

'Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion...
Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.'

But that's because he never played Dungeons & Dragons. A prime autumn sport if ever there was one. Ah, the rattle of dice, the smell of coffee, the uncomfortableness of everyone else in the room as I elected to play an Amazon warrior. Perhaps on reflection D&D wasn't the best arena to work out some of the issues wandering about the ole noodle.

Anyhoo.

I do miss the whole RPG thing, and this time of year brings it all back. Maybe DH as gamesmaster... 'Okay, you're halfway down the long journey to oblivion, the ship of death is nearly in bow range, but first... roll vs falling fruit!'

There probably comes a point in most people's lives when you stop looking at life through the same prism as when you were fifteen, but there's no sign of it happening yet.
I've just got my brand new iPod, and I can't work out whether it's a) a semi tax-deductable piece of IT hardware which will come in very handy backing up my files or on the regular 5-hour train journeys to london, or b) the sort of overpriced show-off toy only a wannabe media wanker would try and justify buying which negates me ever complaining about anything in my life ever again.

Of course, if I did manage to justify the iPod, I'd then have to start on the two Invader Zim DVDs. For which I bought a new DVD player, as my ibook now refuses to let me watch region 1 DVDs. I have a theory that ibooks are like having a beautiful girlfriend who hates you and disapproves of everything you do. Ever. However I think I can distract it by constantly buying expensive yet easily-breakable consumer electronics. I'm going to end the analogy now before it gets rude. However I did get enormous satisfaction by converting a £35 DVD player from ASDA into a black market cyber-rigged multi-region joymachine just by following some hacking instructions off a website. And when I say 'hacking' I really mean 'pressing a certain combination of buttons on the remote', obviously, but it's still cool.

Can I go back in the front room now?

***

Christ, they're all mental. I'm going to build my ship of death. I might need it.

blue cat 3

IMG_3664 toy2robot
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Today's blue cat mood: sleek, futuristic, slightly sinister.

Helloooooo Jen!

... who's settling nicely into her job archiving for the British Film Institute. Apparently she archived the Green Wing video yesterday, which makes me wonder if the job has peaked too soon. Just hope she left a little space next to it for series two...

Karl Theobold (Dr. Martin Dear from GW) is the new Radio Times' 'Face of the Week', gawd bless him. He's a lovely chap, and being bullied by Steve Mangan every week is quickly gaining him the sympathy of the nation. And this week, it's the dancing episode, so he gets to bust a move as well. He really is terribly lithe.

Found an excellent webcomic called Scary Go-Round by John Allison, which I was delighted to learn was British, although it's better known in the States, apparently. I'm going to get myself a t-shirt soon, and I suggest you all do the same. Have a read of it though (and look in 'extras' for some hand-drawn, rather than computer-generated strips, which I slightly preferred, though I imagine they take much longer).

blue cat 2

blue cat 2
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Today's blue cat vibe: a constant nagging feeling there's something behind me.

Bought myself a copy of Cassell's Dictionary of Slang (ed. Jonathon Green, ISBN 0304351679), a dictionary specifically designed for looking up rude words in, and was delighted to see the derivation of my all-time favourite rude word: Norks.

norks/norgs/norgies/norkers n. (1950s+) (Aus) the breasts (cf. BORDEN'S: CREAM JUGS). (The NORCO Co-operative Ltd. butter manufacturer of NSW, featured a cow's udder on its labels).

So there you go.

I'm rewriting some stuff for the Aardman sketch show, which is a very slow business. I hate rewriting. It smacks of actual work, which is something I've successfully avoided for years now. And I can't even crowbar the word 'norks' in there, even though the way kid's telly is going, I'm probably going to have to some kind of inappropriate sexual reference in there just to keep the BBC happy. How things change. Just once, I'd like to hear a middle-ranking TV executive say 'we're looking for programmes with weak, submissive female characters, a generally polite attitude to authority, and an emphasis on actions having consequences'. But nooooo......

Bloody Mary in the garden

Just watched the 'Shaun of the Dead' again, this time with the DVD commentary. These are a bit of an acquired taste, particularly if the film is a bit questionable to begin with (The Onion AV club has a great section on 'DVD Commentaries of the Damned, including among others 'Wrong Turn'), but I love finding out how classic film moments turn out to be inspired last minute additions, or how differently a film could have turned out. 'Groundhog Day' has a great commentary by Ivan Reitman on the differences between the original script and the resulting movie (the film was originally to start with Phil having already been in Punxatawney for around ten thousand years, with only his progress through the hotel's library as a marker for the 'real' passing of time).

What I'd never noticed in 'Shaun' however until Edgar Wright points it out, is how Ed's plan on how to spend Sunday ('Bloody Mary in the garden, have a couple at the Little Princess, back to the bar for shots') exactly mirrors the progress of their zombie-strewn sabbath. I love stuff like that. Not a laugh-out-loud moment, but a little marker for those paying attention. Or for those who weren't paying attention but were listening to the commentary.

My fave laugh-out-loud bit in Shaun is the 'slipping by the fridge' moment. I know this is probably everyone's fave moment, but for me it marks that moment in a film when you can relax, stop worrying about what kind of film you're watching, and just let it carry you along. Similar to the moment when the Nazgul appear in 'Fellowship of the Ring'. I was watching this with Paula, when we both worked in Waterstone's in Canterbury, and frankly had way too much invested in the film. Okay, the beginning battle was superb, but then hobbits just verging slightly on the twee... and then nasty Ringwraiths turn up and you know everything's going to be okay.

Can anyone else think of a bit in a film that made them think 'ah, this is going to be gooooood'?

Finished. Knackered.

Finished the screenplay. After walking around it in circles for days, occasionally poking it with a stick, I decided I would probably get further if I actually sat down, and, you know, wrote something. So it's done. Best thing now is to put it to one side for a week or two, then have another look at it and fix the gaping plot holes that will suddenly become apparent. Also, lines of dialogue that looked fine when you wrote them will suddenly turn out to be trite loads of old pant that need to surgically excised and never referred to again.

Some rewrites from the Aardman Sketch Show to do (still no title). Deadline's Wednesday, so I may have to get the skates on. Looks like they'll need writers right through to the end of November (and possibly beyond), so it'll be interesting to see how I cope with that and GW2 at the same time. I like writing kid's telly and (arguably) 'grown-up' telly at the same time, as they sort of feed off each other quite well. I miss writing for Bob though. Something about having to come up proper stories with a beginning, middle and end, all in eight minutes, becomes a proper challenge, whereas sketchy stuff (and although GW is slowly moving away from being a sketch show, it's still a weirdly freeform beast) tends to be much vaguer. I do like a few boundaries to write against (even if with GW, that boundary has been mostly 'taste' - actually, the more I look at it, the more that 'grown-up' description isn't convincing even me).

Really pissed off I missed the 'King of Fridges' thing on Saturday night, written by my fave writer of all time, Tim Firth ('Preston Front'). If anyone taped it, can they let me know?

Been listening to the 'Real Tuesday Weld' album (they/he's supporting The Magnetic Fields when I see them on the 10th October, so I thought I'd better check them out). So far, me likey, but it's early days yet. I'm not sure how many of the songs would work live though, so possibly there'll be some acoustic versions on the night.

Sigur Ros are the band to bliss out to when you've just finished something you've been putting off for ages. 'Staralfur' is on at the mo, and after a million squillion plays, I still haven't got tired of it.

Ohmigod. I forgot the heating's on, which means I can have a scalding hot bath and a WARM TOWEL. Dear god, it doesn't get better than this.

Peace out.

crossovers and fanfics

Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is finally out then. I'm not going to buy it just yet however, as, becoming increasingly irritated with the way the publishers kept pushing back the release date, I had a quiet word with my dark and secret connections in the book world (hello Paula), who may be getting a copy direct from source (well, not Susanna Clarke's house or anything, which is what that sounded like when I read it back, but, you know, still fairly direct).

For the interested, here's a Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell short story (a crossover with Neil Gaiman's Stardust), and a fanfiction crossover with Pirates of the Caribbean, endorsed and approved (which may mean the same thing) by the author herself.

Possibly I'm getting too excited about a book I haven't read yet, but Paula's giving it two Cumbrian thumbs up, and she hasn't let me down yet.

GW2!

Hurrah and hurrooh! Just heard that Friday Night Comedy has been recommissioned for second series. Possibly on condition we give the Speedy-Up Man a night off, but specific details are not known at this time.

One of the writers has already expressed his intention to "use series 2 money to buy a replica of the Sutton Hoo burial armour and charge around, threatening kids". Awww....

It'll be interesting to see what direction the other writers feel we should take the show though. It already changes massively from the opening episode to the finale (I think episode four out of nine is showing this week, and a plot is finally starting to show). As myself and Sutton Hoo man had our cameos cut out of last week's episode, I think we'll probably make it our mission to write ourselves in as handsome(ish) young(ish) doctors who storm the hospital, kiss all the pretty ladies, then make our escape through the carpark. I may try and cut down on the musical moment though, as apparently each time we play a copyrighted piece, someone from Channel Four has to go round the owner's house and give them a wheelbarrow of cash.

I did technically get one of my own songs in the show, a rewrite of the 'James Is The Man' song familiar to those who used to work with me in/shop at Waterstone's in Canterbury. Lyrics proceed as follows:

James Is the Man,
James Is the Man,
Is James the Man?
Yes, Yes He Am.

If only I'd written a tune as well, there'd be a wheelbarrow of cash outside my door around... ooh... episode six.

Adam, by the way, referred to it as the 'Is James a Man?' song, which was neither funny nor clever.

blue cat no. 1

toycat
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

First in the 'blue cat' series. By Christmas, I'm aiming to have the finest of blue cat imagery on the whole interweb. If you have any blue cat pictures, why not send them to me? Just don't dye any actual cats blue. Unless it's funny.

So close to finishing my screenplay now. In Die Hard terms, I've done the bit where the black cop shoots the guy you knew wasn't really dead, but not the bit where Bruce Willis' wife punches out the TV journalist. So near, yet so far to go...

Curse the Post Office. My agent's been patiently waiting for me to send her a load of GW postcards so she can attach them to my sitcom script when she sends it out (for better or worse). Only I sent them a week ago, so my envelope's clearly sitting in a big pile in London Village somewhere. Or someone's eaten it, which seems equally likely. So script will have to go out as is.

In fact, it's only because Agent Ginny (hey that sounds cool) rang to chase this up that I was guilted into doing some actual writing, as at the time she asked after its progress I was looking at the EBaby video. You need broadband, and probably leave it if you're feeling a bit fragile, but it is rather special. I think Spoilt Victorian Child tipped this first, so kudos to them/it/her/him.

Here's a picture of Keira Knightley lying down in some leaves. She's very good at it. Perhaps she practices.

keiraleaves
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Spent Friday night at the wedding reception of my friend Craig, and met his lovely lady Liz for the first time. He's clearly been hiding her away for the three years I've known him, and I can't honestly blame him. By which I mean: she seems quite smashing, and I hope they're very happy together.

Two things you should never try at the same time: being tall, and dancing at weddings. Oddly, you can sort of get away with it if you move with some conviction. The alternative is sort of swaying in place, llike an Ent trying not to step on the hobbits, and even then you'll end up elbowing an auntie in the face. Much better to quickly carve out a sort of dancefloor DMZ within which you can hustle with alacrity. Once I've taken my territory, my speciality is a movement into a sort of random pointing, but each to their own.

Not that space was that much of an issue, as for some bizarre reason I requested 'Apache', only to watch the dancefloor empty into a vast, barren wasteland. Still, the mighty Craig was decent enough to join me on the dancefloor, and I like to think that between us we proved that when it comes to, you know, really dancing, alcohol, enthusiasm and unrestrained love of life outguns trivialities like talent and rhythm every time. Bless. Groom and bride are off to Madeira for their honeymoon, and I hope to god they have better things to do than read this blog, but good luck to yous, and all the best for the future.

THRILL at the sight of a real writer's meeting! GASP as Stuart reaches for a biscuit! PREPARE TO BE AMAZED as we all have a second cup of tea!

meeting
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Spent yesterday in writer's meeting with Aardman about new animated kid's sketch show. They rejected my sketch about chainsaws, which, with the benefit of hindsight, isn't that surprising.

Rejected series titles thus far: May Contain Nuts (already taken), Come On Debbie Type Faster (not kid-friendly), Small Things Moving Quickly (which I like), Freak Street and Watch Something Else. My contributions were The Pow Show (sounds okay but looks crap written down) and The Wally McPlop Show (worried about being sued by the real Mr McPlop). Also Ploppy Doofers, but I'd had too much coffee by then.

Stuart Kenworthy (Green Wing co-writer) was there, with the other main writers being Ian Carney, Annie Caulfield, Glenn Dakin & Nick barber and Mark Warren, although there seem to be a horde of others waiting in the wings. The initial character designs are pretty amazing (my characters are the Street Rappers, and a possible second guy called the Wildly Over-Ambitous Sock Puppet, who, strangely enough, looked like being ten times more expensive than all the cutting-edge CGI they're using. I can't put up any character designs at this point, as they're all being cleared by lawyers, but as soon as I can, I will. Apart from anything else, I want them as screensavers. Or possibly tattoos...

Polar Bears

polarbears
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Awwww.....

Creature Comforts Tortoise

tortoise
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Of course the coolest thing about the Aardman is that everwhere you go you find plasticine figures in glass cabinet, so I got a couple of shots of stuff that won't get me sent to the Big House by lawyers.

Third Act, silly songs

Finally getting somewhere with the screenplay. I always knew what had to happen in the third act - more so than usual as this is one of those scripts that hopefully makes you say 'oh I seee' and then go and watch it again. Which is fine, but if it doesn't all hang together perfectly, and move at just the right pace, it just leaves the audience scratching their heads and going 'huh?'.

Possibly where I was going wrong was forgetting all the stuff around the big plot point and trying to go one page at a time. Bit like making a mosaic by baking the tiles and painting them one at a time and hoping they all fit together. There's probably a further level to the analogy involving grout, but I can't think what it is at the moment.

Of course, none of this means the final result will be any good. But at least it'll be fairly close to the picture I had in my head. For better or worse.

Having some experience of working in children's television might give me a higher tolerance to this sort of thing than most people, but the Uncle Neptune site (found through Oddio Overplay) has some weirdly catchy Sesame Street-like little songs. Not sure if they're for children specifically, or they're just made by people with really dark day-time jobs (slaughterhouse cleaner, social workers, prison guards) who get together and make fluffy silly music in the evenings, but either way, they're great when you've been listening to too much Chemical Brothers and need a gentle way out. The 'Big Blue Day' song is already a fave play. I like to think this is a secret site maintained by Stephin Merritt from the Magnetic Fields for the occasions when all the anti-depressants combine to take him somewhere... unreleasable.

Course, if he really is on anti-depressants, I'm going to feel awful. Sorry Steve.

Making Plans for Rufus

Booked hotel and train tickets for the Rufus Wainwright concert in London Village on 29th October. His sister Martha is supporting, so I'm just hoping she plays 'BMFA', which is the rudest piece of alt.folk I ever have heard. I sometimes play it on my minidisc thing while I'm wandering around town, and don't realise I've been singing along until I see parents putting their hands over their children's ears, and people who used to teach me english fifteen years ago looking at me disapprovingly.

Not far to go with my screenplay now, so obviously I spent the afternoon sitting on Gyllingvase beach reading 'Straw Dogs' by John Gray. I'm trying to read it properly, rather than rushing off to the next bit, but it's increasingly difficult. That seems to be how I read fiction these days: just zip through it picking out fun bits without having a clue what they mean, then making a slower pass the next time, until after five or six goes you've absorbed the whole thing. Not the most sensible way to read a book (I think the technique developed after buying loads of role-playing books and skipping to the bits where you generate a character and load her up with bastard swords and as many fireball spells as she could carry (I usually played female elves, read into that what you will). I defy you to find a better way of reading a Neal Stephenson novel though, especially from Cryptonomicon onwards.

Just sent my sitcom script on to Channel 4 (or as you're supposed to call it 'The Channel'), as part of the post-GW media onslaught. By an odd coincidence, after I sent it, there was an email in my inbox from Daisy Haggard, who appears in later episodes of GW and who I always had in mind for the 'Jools' role in said sitcom. If you're reading, Daisy, then helloooo. So, fingers crossed that they like it, or at least don't want anyone else to have to the extent they'll pay up some moolah...

Doc Ock or not?

It seems Adam may not have appreciated being physionomically compared to Doc Ock, so let me reiterate: it's only when he's about to sneeze. It's an odd thing. At all other times he looks disturbingly like Anthony from popular boyband "The Blue". I was going to google about for a comparative picture, but I've already comfused my ibook by constantly playing Rufus Wainwright and the Magnetic Fields whilst ordering David Sedaris books off Amazon, leading it to believe it is owned by a gay New Yorker with a fantastically cosmopolitan social life, not in fact a Falmouth-based slugabed with a Rachel Stevens fetish. And even that's waning now I know she's only 5' 2.

Although on Friday night I did spill pink champagne on Commodore Norrington from Pirates of the Carribean (this is the last time I'll mention it Adam, I promise). He was terribly nice about it, and when I confessed my sins to his wife she just said 'Ooh, not to worry, he's always been terribly moist'. I wish things like that happened every time I went to London. Commodore Norrington probably doesn't though.

Tried to take an early morning shot of a spider's web glistening in the dawn light, but the camera kept focusing on the plants behind the web, and the spider had all his legs pulled in so he just looked like a lump on some string. I had a go at encouraging him to be more classically spidery with a twig, but he ran away, so I gave up. He went back later on though, and I encouraged some small flies into his web as recompense, so it all worked out.

What made the whole thing more vexing was that two other webs hung in a line with the first one, so somewhere there was a beautiful, prize-winning picture to be had. Not by me though.

adam

adam
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

And here's Adam on the boat. Turns out, if you get him just before he sneezes, he looks extraordinarily like Alfred Molina....

skeletontree

skeletontree
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

I stayed in Canterbury at the weekend, then got a lift back down to Cornwall with Adam, who fancied a few days holiday. On the Wednesday we took the boat up the river to Truro, which is one of those touristy things you always mean to do but never get round to when you live in a place. Bit like New Yorkers who show visitors round the Empire State Building, then end up freaking out because it's so high.

You can't really tell I took this from a boat, but I really like the one dead white tree sticking out from the others, so here it is.

singalongaGW

pat
Originally uploaded by jamesandthebluecat.

Here's Pat, from GW production staff, who very kindly let me sleep on his sofa the night of the screening. Thanks Pat. Still haven't figured out the flash on my camera, so it's a tad on the dark side. If you study Pat's fingering however, you'll see he's playing 'Sweet Child of Mine' by Guns n'roses. And playing it very well. That might be Steven Mangan on the piano. Or it might not.

No more blogging for a day or two.

Off to London Village tomorrow, watching the first GW episode with cast and crew, and taking lots of photos of glamorous beautiful people. My mate is a massive Archers fan, so I'll be randomly texting him stuff along the lines of 'I'm sorry, I can't speak now, Debbie from the Archers is pouring me a glass of wine'. And that sort of thing.

My dad's back from the States, where he got me a genuine bona fide 'Cheers' tee-shirt from Boston! Hurrah! He also took a helicopter tour of NY, which was impressive. And went on a jazz boat in New Orleans, which sounds rude (if you grew up in the UK in the seventies, and are puerile), but propably wasn't.

Article on GW in the Independent. Quite positive, and thankfully points out that the C4 trailers and posters aren't that indicative of the final result. They seemed to have made rather unrepresentative choices, although possibly they had to go for the broadest possible examples. They're all funnier in context though. I should probably ease off the reviews a bit and just let it go, but you know, I want it to do well, and it's the first show I've felt properly involved with and so on...